Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Renewable Energy – OverviewCalifornia on it's own is #1 in the world for geothermal energy production, with 2,694 MW of capacity, about 19.5% of the global total.

California recently set a new goal to increase the renewable content of its electricity from one third to 50 percent by 2030. The state also has a goal to install 12,000 MW of renewable distributed generation. The California Energy Commission is tracking progress toward achieving its renewable goals and the status of permitting and constructing new renewable energy facilities in California.

Highlights for geothermal energy:

Geothermal produces 13,000 GWh of RPS Eligible Generation or 17% of the total for renewable energy.

Geothermal provides 2,694 MW of capacity from43 power plants, 10% of the total for renewables:

Imperial: 20 power plants with 718 MW capacity

Inyo: 3 power plants with 302 MW capacity

Lake: 5 power plants with 396 MW capacity

Mono: 3 power plants with 40 MW capacity

Sonoma: 12 power plants with 1,238 MW capacity

There are 7 outstanding Environmental Permits for possible near-term geothermal power projects for a total of 381 MW capacity:

“Idaho has an abundant supply of clean energy stored below ground, but the resource hasn’t reached its potential because of excessive regulation,” Labrador said. “My bill will clear the way for additional exploration without sacrificing environmental protections.”

Quantum Power East Africa Limited (QPEA), one of the Independent Power Producers (IPP) for the Menengai Geothermal Project, will commence the construction of a 35 MW power plant on 1st March 2018. pic.twitter.com/1qkodzrxX7

The development and deployment of novel geological technologies in industry often raise anxiety in the public sphere. New technologies are intrinsically unfamiliar, not only to the public, but also to other technical specialists in the field. This can focus conflict and uncertainty around issues that may not actually be problematic, or obscure other issues that may actually warrant closer inspection. An example of an emergent geo-technology that has received little attention in the public or general technical spheres is the introduction of Enhanced Geothermal Power in the UK. In early 2018, a project testing the viability of deep geothermal heat and power will begin in Cornwall, England, and is likely to face contested issues of public perception that have confronted other novel geological technologies, such as Carbon Capture and Storage and hydraulic fracturing.

To address concerns about how the UK public will conceptualise this new technology, the Cornish deep geothermal project has developed an innovative partnership between the industry partner operating the test drilling site and a geoscience cognition research partner.

I’m in Paris for the big meeting on climate change hosted by President Macron. Leaders from around the world are here to take stock of the progress the world is making on this urgent challenge.

This is a pivotal moment. We need to adapt to the climate change that is already affecting the planet, and develop new tools that will keep the problem from getting worse. Innovation is key to doing both. Scientific advances in crop science, for example, will help farmers deal with changing weather patterns. And energy research will make it possible to power modern life—the way we live, work, travel, and make things—without adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

The good news is that there’s a lot of progress to report on both fronts. Here’s an overview of the developments I’ll be highlighting in Paris.

Our $1 billion clean-energy investment fund is up and running. Breakthrough Energy Ventures has hired a staff of accomplished investors, company builders, scientists, and technologists. They have identified five areas that are especially promising but also underfunded. This is where we will focus our investments:

Geothermal power. There is a phenomenal amount of energy stored up as heat under the Earth’s surface—many times more than we could get from all the known coal and oil reserves in the world. Tapping this source involves pumping steam or hot water from underground to drive turbines.

Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) cycles—which are inching closer to commercial applications for waste heat recovery, concentrating solar power, nuclear, [geothermal] and fossil energy—offer higher thermal efficiencies and power density than conventional steam Rankine and Air Brayton cycles in use today for power generation. But to realize these potentially game-changing cycles, common challenges associated with turbomachinery must be overcome, experts from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) said as they presented a tutorial on December 12 at the Turbomachinery Symposium in Houston.

During their tutorial, which provided an overview of ongoing research on sCO2 power cycles and associated turbomachinery, the experts noted that SwRI is designing and should soon begin building a 10-MW grid-connected pilot project at the organization’s campus in San Antonio, Texas, that will use sCO2 Brayton power cycles.

Ormat Technologies Inc. today announced that one of its subsidiaries has signed approximately $50 million Engineering, Procurement and Construction, (EPC) contract, with Top Energy Ltd for Ngawha extension geothermal project located in Ngawha, New Zealand. The project is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2021.

Under the EPC contract, Ormat will provide its air-cooled Ormat Energy Converters for the Ngawha geothermal extension project. This is the third EPC contract Ormat has signed with Top Energy Ltd. The first one was for the Ngawha I power plant in 1998 and the second for Ngawha II power plant in 2008.

A firm with Kenyan links is set to receive a Sh2 billion equity funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for investment in renewable energy projects across sub-Saharan Africa excluding South Africa.

Berkeley Energy, which has an office in Nairobi, will receive the funding to boost its $200 million (Sh20.6 billion) Africa Renewable Energy Fund (AREF), which invests in viable wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass and solar projects.

The firm is one of the companies involved in the 1,000 megawatts (MWs) Corbetti Geothermal Project in southern Ethiopia and has also invested in several hydropower projects in Uganda.

PT Pertamina (Persero) is supporting the new government regulation as stipulated in Ministerial Regulation No. 50 of 2017 on the Development of New and Renewable Energy (EBT) which opens opportunities for the process of determining tariffs by way of business-to-business (B2B) between state electricity company PLN and independent power developers (IPP).

The Director of Geothermal of Directorate General of New Energy, Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Yunus Saefulhak said the new regulation enables the B2B scheme if the average production cost of electricity generation is deemed inadequate.

He pointed out the electricity price for steam from the Rantau Dedap Geothermal Power Plant project located in Muara Enim and Lahat regency, Pagar Alam City, South Sumatera, was determined through a power purchase agreement (PPA) amendment process.

Raft River Geothermal Power Plant. Photo taken by Ian Crawford on GRC Fieldtrip, 2015.

U.S. Geothermal Inc. announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire its partner's remaining ownership interest in Raft River Energy I LLC from Goldman Sachs. The purchase is scheduled to close on January 2, 2018 and the price consists of a one-time, $350,000 cash payment from U.S. Geothermal to Goldman Sachs. The Company will then own 100 percent of the project.

Raft River Energy I is located in Southern Idaho, near the town of Malta, and achieved commercial operation on April 3, 2008. The Raft River facility is a single, 18-megawatt (gross) module, with a design output of 13 megawatts (net) annual average based on a specific flow and temperature of geothermal brine. The PPA for the project was signed on September 24, 2007 with the Idaho Power Company and allows for the sale of up to 13 megawatts of electricity on an annual average basis over a 25-year term. Renewable Energy Credits are sold under a separate contract. In 2018, the PPA energy price, plus the value of the renewable energy credit will be $74.32 per megawatt-hour.

The company is in a continuing process to increase generation at Raft River through modifications at the existing facility. The addition of production well RRG-5 along with upgrades to the injection system in 2017 increased the average generation from the Raft River plant by approximately 1.6 net megawatts. Due to the positive response from the wellfield, which showed a minimal decrease in fluid levels, a study to increase the capacity of production pump RRG-4 in 2018 will be analyzed.

Education Program - special meetings, workshops, and conferences on a broad range of topics pertaining to geothermal exploration, development and utilization at a discount to members.

International Geothermal Association (IGA) Membership - through the GRC's affiliation with the International Geothermal Association (IGA), all GRC Members are automatically members of the IGA, which offers discount registration to its World Geothermal Congress events (every 5 years), quarterly IGA News and a special discount rate for the international publication, Geothermics.

Additionally, GRC members receive a discount on advertising and exclusive first-access space consideration in all GRC publications. For more information about advertising, please contact Anh Lay at alay@geothermal.org.

TWI, an U.K.-based independent research and technology organisation, is co-ordinating a recently won European Horizon 2020 project for the development of novel and cost-effective corrosion resistant coatings for high temperature geothermal applications. This project, dubbed Geo-Coat, comes from the low carbon energy call to develop next generation technologies for renewable electricity and heating/cooling.

Thus, the Geo-Coat target is to design the new high performance coatings to resist each of the specified threats or combinations of threat, as experimentally derived at key failure points within geothermal runs, and to apply them only to the affected components.

The project will last for three years, with the Geo-Coat partners coming from the UK, Iceland, Romania and Norway.

The Geothermal Technologies Office, within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), announces a Request for Information (RFI) seeking feedback from industry, academia, research laboratories, government agencies, and other stakeholders on issues related to lowering the costs and risks associated with drilling geothermal wells for the purpose of electricity production and opportunities to collaborate on best practices with other drilling industries.

Geothermal energy has the potential to provide a significant amount of renewable electric power for the United States. Drilling costs can account for 50% or more of the total capital cost for a geothermal power project. Identifying pathways to reduce these costs is a top priority.

EERE is specifically interested in information on defining major challenges in geothermal drilling and identifying opportunities in research and development and process improvement. This is solely a request for information and not a Funding Opportunity Announcement. EERE is not accepting applications.

Responses to this RFI must be submitted electronically to geothermal.comments@ee.doe.gov no later than 5:00pm (ET) on January 22, 2018. All submissions received must include “Geothermal Drilling RFI” in the subject of the message.

The preferred second UKGEOS site is at Clyde Gateway, in the east end of Glasgow, Scotland. The focus of this, the Glasgow Geothermal Energy Research Field Site (GGERFS), is on characterising and monitoring the subsurface for minewater and hot sedimentary aquifer geothermal energy, and for cooling and heat storage.

BGS holds a great deal of legacy borehole, mining and geochemistry data and has updated existing bedrock and superficial deposits models of the area. However, deep borehole and seismic data are lacking to define the geology and structure of the area below a few hundred metres. Hydrogeological and temperature data are also lacking for the bedrock strata. Regional datasets and knowledge have (and can be further) used to reduce uncertainty and risk in these aspects of the geological characterisation.

The main goal of this project is to use ‘clumped’ isotopes to investigate the conditions at which calcite precipitates in fractures in active geothermal systems.
The clumped isotope method has great potential as a proxy for reconstructing past temperatures in a range of geological settings. This method is based on the
temperature dependence of bonds between heavy carbon (13C) and oxygen (18O) isotopes in the carbonate mineral lattice. The principal supervisor can be contacted at: john.macdonald.3@glasgow.ac.uk

AQYLON is a French company involved in the design and manufacturing of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) turbines, which transform heat into electricity and thermal power from renewable sources (biomass, geothermal, solar thermal) or from waste heat created by industrial processes, engines or gas turbines.

Hot water or steam are extracted from deep inside the Earth through wells, providing us with a hot source to power our ORC module. Since the technology used to detect geothermal sources is improving, geothermal energy should become a major energy source in the few next decades. More information........

Monday, December 11, 2017

Geothermal energy has a large potential for ecological heat generation in Poland. What is required for the optimum development of that essential sector is co-operation and use of the experiences possessed by the global leaders in the field.

That purpose has been assigned to the international Project on “Geothermal energy: a basis for low-emission heat generation, improvement of living conditions, and sustainable development – preliminary studies for selected areas in Poland,” implemented in July 2017.

This Project opens way for long-expected co-operation between Poland, Iceland, and Norway, in the area of geothermal energy, under the EOG Financial Mechanisms and the Norwegian Funds in the years to come, providing an exceptional opportunities of joint projects and essential progress of geothermal water use in Poland.

New Horizons for Clean Power Generation from Low Temperature Geothermal Energy

Geothermal power only contributes a meagre 0.3% of total electricity generation, despite the country possessing the third largest geothermal resource in the world, representing a power generation potential of 23 GW.

While the government has been proactive in recent initiatives to identify and promote potential areas for exploration and development, there has not been any significant development of geothermal power in the country in the last decade.

However, despite stagnation in development of the technology at medium and high temperatures, increased investment and technological innovation targeting low temperature geothermal power (<120°C), historically used primarily for heating purposes, are expected to significantly increase the addressable market potential for geothermal power and represent a new growth market in the country.

So, what if scientists could offset dangerous greenhouse gas levels by manually capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and then putting it to use in a cyclical, no-waste method?

One such project, run by a team of researchers in Iceland taking their cue from processes in nature, seeks to combine basalt and CO2. Basalt is naturally highly reactive with CO2; when the two meet, they undergo a series of exchanges that culminate with the carbon precipitating out as a solid whitish substance, similar to limestone.

"In our volcanic areas, we have volcanic CO2 interacting with our basalt, turning the CO2 into carbonate minerals. So then we thought why not test this interesting idea out here in Iceland. We have our geothermal power plant, providing a source of CO2 that then can be captured and injected back into the ground, and see if we can utilise and accelerate this natural process," says Edda Aradottir of Reykjavik Energy, home to carbon capture programme CarbFix.

"Once the CO2 is turned into stone, you don't have to worry about it, it's not going anywhere it's just buried in the ground as rock," she continues.

Almost $176 million worth of contracts have been let to expand the Ngawha Geothermal Power Station, with a Northland firm winning one of the three main contracts.

It's believed to be one of the largest construction projects ever to be undertaken in the Far North and Whangarei-based United Civil Construction has won the contract to carry out major earthworks and other civil work for the expansion, which will take Ngawha's capacity from 25 MW to 53 MW - enough to power the entire Far North.

Iceland Drilling will send a specialist team and be based in Northland for one year from April 2018. Israeli geothermal plant construction experts Ormat have the contract to design, build and supply the power station.

Yellowstone Lake, far from any ocean, hosts underwater hot springs similar to those on mid-ocean ridges. A research team is investigating the processes that drive the lake’s hydrothermal systems.

The vent fields on the floor of Yellowstone Lake are a significant part of the world’s largest continental hydrothermal system and thus form an important part of the Earth’s thermal budget and geochemical cycles.

Continental hydrothermal systems are a primary source of economically important metal deposits, provide geothermal energy resources, support exotic ecosystems that are just beginning to be explored, and, in some settings such as Yellowstone, pose significant geological hazards.

H.R. 4568 would reduce regulatory approval waiting times for small exploratory wells from about 10 months to two months or less. Test holes 8 inches or less in diameter would be granted a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Similar provisions already exist for oil and gas exploration and mining.

The bill also permits coproduction of geothermal resources on lands leased for oil and gas; requires the government to identify priority areas for geothermal development; and authorizes noncompetitive, fair market value leasing by an existing leaseholder on adjoining lands. The leasing provision is drawn from H.R. 4252, a bill introduced in November by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho.

The Trias drilling for geothermal Westland Trias project in Naaldwijk, in the Netherlands, started a month ago. The drilling of the first section went well. The first section is about 1,300 meters deep. In the weekend of 18/19 November, the steel tube (casing) with a diameter of approximately 50 cm was inserted into the borehole. The space between the borehole and the outer wall of the casing was cemented to reinforce the borehole.

The drilling of the second section started November 29. The borehole in this section has a diameter of approximately 45 cm. The drilling runs smoothly with an average speed between 10 and 15 meters per hour. We expect to be finished with the drilling of this section in a few days time, having reached a depth of 2,550 meters. A casing will then be inserted and reinforced with cement.

PetroEnergy Resources Corp. on Friday said its geothermal power unit had secured approval to participate in the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM), paving the way for its commercial operation.

Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC), which operates the spot market, gave its nod on Dec. 7, 2017 for Maibarara Geothermal Inc. (MGI), which sought the registration of its 12 MW expansion of its geothermal facility in Sto. Tomas, Batangas.

Dave P. Gadiano, PetroGreen head of energy trading, said the WESM registration of Maibarara-2 clears the way for the facility to export power to the grid during the commissioning stage.

“The testing and commissioning of Maibarara-2 is estimated to start by middle of December. Export of power to the grid is expected soon after commissioning starts,” he said in a statement.

Geothermal power plants are currently installed in eight European countries of which six EU-28 Member States. Capacity additions in recent years took mainly place in Turkey where a strong growth can be observed from about 220 MW in 2012 to about 870 MW at the end of 2016 (Shortall & Uihlein, 2017).

The global market in geothermal power is dominated by four major manufacturers (Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Ormat, Fuji) accounting for about 80 % of the installed capacity (Annex et al., 2016). In Europe, Ansaldo-Tosi leads the market with about 30 % of installed capacity. Other prominent players in Europe are Mitsubishi-Turboden, Fuji, Ormat, and GE/Nuovo Pignone. Ansaldo-Tosi and GE/Nuovo Pignone are mainly active in Italy with capacity installed in hydrothermal power plants existing since a very long time.

The European market is still dominated by conventional dry steam/flash technology (65 % of installed capacity). However, the majority of recent installations are binary power plants. The main turbine suppliers after 2012 are Ormat (34 % market share, followed by Exergy and Atlas Copco with 22 % and 19 % of market share, respectively.

Development of a geothermal well is a costly ordeal, and combined with the apparent risk of a low payback or even abandonment of the hole, the investors and stakeholders are left understandably precautious.

To encourage the pursuit of geothermal energy sources, a compensation guarantee has been put in effect per 2015 for projects in Denmark.

The compensation guarantee comprises a user charge, correlating to a percentage of the budget: 13.5% for the first well, and 9% for each following well. In return, the insurance policy covers three guarantees in total:

Drill Risk Guarantee: coverage of budget overruns while drilling.

Total Damage Guarantee: partial coverage of drilling costs, provided the project must be abandoned due to technical problems.

Reservoir Risk Guarantee: partial coverage of drilling costs, provided that the reservoir does not perform as expected.

The case studies are presented here to illustrate the application of the geothermal energy specifications for the uniform use of UNFC in different contexts. These application examples from different countries provide a range of scenarios in the classification of geothermal resources in a manner consistent with the classification of other energy resources.

Broad tax legislation advanced by the US Congress in recent weeks is headed toward a conference committee, where Republicans in the House and Senate will hash out their differences. In this article we identify which provisions matter most for clean energy.

Geothermal electric power plants currently have a permanent 10 percent ITC. Under the House bill, this would be eliminated in 2027. Geothermal would also likely get hit by the BEAT provision in the Senate bill, though not nearly as much as wind and solar due to less reliance on tax equity partners.

General Electric Co. plans to cut 12,000 jobs in its power business as the company’s new leaders look to slash costs and stabilize the beleaguered manufacturer.

The reductions, accounting for about 18 percent of GE Power’s workforce, include both professional and production employees, the company said Thursday in a statement. The world’s largest maker of gas turbines said the unit needs to become leaner as customers turn away from fossil fuel-based energy sources.

Demand is flagging for GE’s power-generation equipment because of overcapacity, lower utilization, fewer outages and the growth in renewable energy, said Stifel Financial Corp. analyst Robert McCarthy.

The tender seeks qualified Firms with the capability to supply 2 drilling rigs and relevant accessories, execute drilling operation and maintenance at the Aluto Project, in accordance with technical and schedule of requirements. To be more specific, the tender is seeking for both supplying of 2 new drilling rigs and relevant accessories with provision of drilling services and maintenance.

The awarded Firm shall supply all the necessary goods and services as listed below including relevant experienced personnel to carry out all drilling and testing of the wells and provide maintenance of the drilling equipment. The awarded Firm shall execute a comprehensive drilling plan resulting in the safe and timely completion of 8 to 20 geothermal wells comprising the Project requirements, all to be included within a single contract by a single Firm or a consortium/JV of contractors. Wells are anticipated to be either vertical or directionally drilled to a nominal depth of approximately 2,750 meters and fully tested to determine potential for geothermal power production.

The awarded Firm, depending on the results of the first 8 wells, shall be prepared to continue the drilling and program for up to an additional 12 wells; a determination to continue the drilling campaign will of course depend on the results of the drilling. It is anticipated that both production and injection wells would be drilled during project implementation.

We report a three-stage bench-scale column extraction process to selectively extract lithium chloride from geothermal brine. The goal of this research is to develop materials and processing technologies to improve the economics of lithium extraction and production from naturally occurring geothermal and other brines for energy storage applications.

Each cycle of the column extraction process consists of three steps: (1) loading the sorbent with lithium chloride from brine; (2) intermediate washing to remove unwanted ions; (3) final washing for unloading the lithium chloride ions.

The present work demonstrates that LDH is an effective sorbent for selective extraction of lithium from brines, thus offering the possibility of effective application of lithium salts in lithium-ion batteries leading to a fundamental shift in the lithium supply chain.

The businessman said the investment in geothermal power plant will top $82 million (Sh8.2 billion) and groundbreaking is slated for mid-March. Construction of the plant is expected to take about 18 months.

Ormat Technologies and Quantum Power are the two other firms selected to build a 35 MW steam power plant each on a public-private partnership basis.

The three firms were picked in mid-2014, but work on the power plants is yet to kick off to date.

The power and the light no. 1. by Christopher Mathews. Aurora borealis and cooling towers
at Hellisheiði Power Station, Iceland. August 31, 2016. GRC PHOTO CONTEST 2017

There has never been more use of hot water in the capital area in November than this year. Mbl reports. The temperature that month was measured as quite cold according to the Icelandic Met Office, explaining the need for more hot water.

Geothermal energy is used to meet the heating and hot water requirements of nearly 90% of the nation’s housing. According to Veitur Utilities, nine million litres of hot water flowed into homes in the capital area last month. That amounts to 15% more usage than during the same month last year.

New numbers from the US Energy Information Administration show that renewable electricity production through the first three quarters of 2017 was up 14.7%, while coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear power all decreased.

In the year to September 2017 11,988 Gigawatthours (GWh) were generated by geothermal energy up from 11,655 in the same period last year, a 2.9% increase. California generated 8,763 GWh an increase of 3.3%, Nevada 2,490 GWh - increase of 1.5%, Utah 343 GWh - a decrease of 2.4%, Oregon 142 GWh - up 13.6%, Hawaii 188 GWh - up 5.2%. Idaho - 51 GWh (down 3.9%) and New Mexico - 10 GWh (down 4.9%) round off the list.

(From Google Translation) The Government of the Canary Islands "does not even value fiscally prudent" exploration for high enthalpy geothermal resources, something which the councils of Gran Canaria, La Palma and Tenerife have invested in and are taking the first steps, with their own funding, with help from Involcan. At the moment, exploration is on the surface, before continuing at depth.

Each volunteer will be responsible for developing 3-4 presentations and assisting with facilitating discussions throughout the partnership exchange. NARUC will collaborate with the volunteer delegation to develop the agenda. 10-15 participants are expected from the Ethiopian Energy Authority, and possibly several attendees from other Ethiopian stakeholders (e.g. developers, ministry representatives, utility staff, etc.). NARUC will take care of all logistical arrangements for travel, and will cover associated expenses. Please see attached solicitation for more information.

If you are interested, please complete and submit the attached application form and a two-page (or less) resume of relevant work experience to Ms. Rachel Estrada at restrada@naruc.org by December 8, 2017.

For those who cannot submit a complete application in time, please submit a brief expression of interest to Ms. Rachel Estrada via email and she will contact you if she needs more information.

A hidden, almost limitless supply of energy could be swirling around, directly beneath our feet. Local geologist Taufeeq Dhansay and a group of five fellow scientists from the Council of Geoscience and Nelson Mandela University believe that the government is overlooking significant volumes of buried Earth heat, which could be tapped to generate renewable energy.

Writing in the latest volume of the South African Journal of Science, Dhansay notes that SA does not have active volcanoes or evidence of recent volcanic activity. Yet he believes a recent heat-mapping study suggests there is still enough heat and warmth beneath the land that could be used to generate steam and electricity, making use of recent technological advances in the field of low-enthalpy geothermal energy harvesting.

HPHT is the term used in the oil industry to designate high pressure and high temperature fields/wells/reservoirs. A reservoir is considered HPHT if its temperature is above 150°C and its fluid pressure exceeds 69 MPa.

Coming to the world of geothermal energy, I was curious how these two worlds match. How hot are wells considered HPHT in the oil industry compared to geothermal wells? How extreme are the conditions in which geothermal wells are drilled?

Low Enthalpy Geothermal Forward Osmosis
The Geothermal Technologies Office seeks to partner with a small business to commercialize a novel Forward Osmosis (FO) process driven by low-enthalpy geothermal heat. In contrast to Reverse Osmosis (RO), which utilizes mechanical energy to create a pressure gradient across a membrane to purify water, FO can be achieved by utilizing a draw solution to create an osmotic pressure gradient across the membrane to treat the water. Historically, FO systems have had limited utility because draw solutes have been difficult to separate from the treated water. Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have developed a system for implementing FO using a switchable-polarity solvent (SPS) draw solution that can be easily extracted from the treated water stream and reused.

Dispatchable Geothermal Operations

The Geothermal Technologies Office solicits innovations that will enable geothermal energy to be more widely deployed as a dispatchable electricity source. These innovations can be in developing new hardware solutions, new systems of existing technologies, or new control algorithms and/or processes. Some potential areas of interest include: offsetting parasitic loads from normal plant operations during curtailment, improving lifetime reservoir performance, and integrating novel storage technology. The innovation could also take the form of developing an analysis tool that provides a valuation of operating current geothermal power plants in a flexible mode; however, any application proposing such an analysis tool must clearly show the ability to monetize their innovation in the commercialization plan.

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Scotland Office, Lord Duncan, was on site on Monday to witness the launch of the project.

The developers claim the Enterprise & Innovation Centre will “foster the next generation of entrepreneurs, with strong focus on innovation, digital skills, and cyber security”.

Scotland’s first deep geothermal heating system with a 2km deep well is to be drilled next year to enable water to be heated by the surrounding rocks, pumped back up again and then into properties in Kilmarnock.

Friday, December 1, 2017

A new risk mitigation facility aims to encourage investment in large-scale geothermal energy in Indonesia.

With support from the World Bank and other partners, the government of Indonesia is planning a new Geothermal Risk Mitigation Facility. This would leverage several billion dollars in private sector funding, unlocking investments through risk mitigation for exploration and early production drilling. This would allow investors to prove sufficient resources to attract commercial finance for large-scale development.

Over the next seven years it is expected that the facility will lead to the development of more than 1 GW of new geothermal capacity.